Jailer agrees to plead guilty in case of inmate who froze to death at jail
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — A former Alabama prison guard has pleaded guilty to the death of a mentally ill man who died of hypothermia after being locked naked in a concrete cell for two weeks.
Federal court records show Joshua Conner Jones reached a plea deal with prosecutors over the treatment of two inmates at the Walker County Jail. Jones agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to deprive an inmate of his rights in connection with the 2023 death of Tony Mitchell. He also pleaded guilty to a separate count of deprivation of rights in connection with the attack on another inmate.
The plea agreement revealed that there were five accomplices in the assault that led to Mitchell’s death, an indication that the investigation is ongoing and that more people could be charged in the death.
An attorney for Jones, W Scott Brower, said he could not comment on the agreement. Court documents did not name the deceased inmate, but Bower confirmed the charges were related to Mitchell’s 2023 death. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Mitchell, 33, died on Jan. 26, 2023, after being taken from jail to a hospital emergency room with a body temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a lawsuit filed by his mother.
The plea agreement stated that Mitchell “was nearly always naked, wet, cold, and covered in feces while lying on the cement floor without a mat or blanket.” By the second week of his confinement, he was “largely listless and generally unresponsive to officers’ questions,” but that the conspirators took no action to alleviate his suffering.
Prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement that Jones admitted that “we did it together. We killed him.”
Jon C. Goldfarb, an attorney representing the family in the civil lawsuit, said: “The family is shocked to see on paper what they knew happened to Tony Mitchell.”
Mitchell, who had a history of drug addiction, was arrested on January 12 after a cousin asked authorities to perform a welfare check on him because he was babbling in his home about portals to heaven and hell and appeared to be suffering from a mental breakdown. The Walker County Sheriff’s Office posted a photo of him Facebook pageand added that Mitchell, whose face was painted black, “brandished a gun and shot officers at least once” before running into the woods.
Prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement that when Mitchell’s deteriorating condition was brought up, the accomplices would respond that “he’s getting what he’s getting, since he shot at officers” or words to that effect.